Laarne Castle
The Laarne Castle ( Dutch Kasteel van Laarne ) stands in the Belgian town Laarne seven kilometers east of Ghent in the province of East Flanders and is one of the best preserved moated castles in Belgium. Its roots lie in a simple fortification of the 12th century, which was built in the 13th and 14th centuries. Century a castle was extended and a conversion to the 17th century castle learned.
Three of the castle towers have a conical roof made of stone as an architectural curiosity , which is unique in Belgium.
The entire palace complex has been under monument protection since April 24, 1997 , after some parts were included in the Belgian list of monuments in 1943 and 1962.
history
The beginnings
A predecessor of today's facility was erected in the 12th century in the swampy area of a wide bend in the Scheldt on a pile grid . The first owner known by name of Laarnes was a Diederik van Massemen ( French Thierry de Masmines ), who also owned the Massemen estate and who is mentioned in documents in the mid-12th century. Together with other fortifications such as Ooidonk , Wondelgem and Gavere , the facility in Laarne formed a defensive belt for the city of Ghent. Diederik's daughter Beatrix married Gerard van Zottegem ( French Gérard de Sotteghem ) around 1199 and thus brought Laarne and Massemen to his family. This was called in the following period "von Massemen" ( French de Masmines ). Their son Giselbrecht had the foundation of the pile grate increased and a second wooden building erected after he had become lord of Laarne in March 1228 on the occasion of his marriage to Mathilde, daughter of Robert de Bethunes. This Hof te Laerne was first mentioned in a document in 1294.
A first stone building was only erected around 1300 and then expanded to a moated castle on a pentagonal floor plan. In addition to the first stone building in the southwest, which served as a fortified gatehouse , a residential tower on the north corner of the complex and three round corner towers, which were connected by a circular wall with a final battlement, belonged to this first sandstone complex . In 1362 the property was first referred to as a castle in a document . In this document of September 8th of that year, Gerard van Massemen ( French: Gérard de Masmines ) allowed Ludwig II , Count of Flanders , to station Flemish soldiers in his castle in the event of armed conflict. The permission had a decisive influence on the castle in the following years, because it played a major role in the disputes that flared up again and again between the city of Ghent and the respective Count of Flanders. For this reason, Laarne often changed hands between 1382 and 1453. 20 years later the plant for example by troops in Gent against Louis II. Was revolted , besieged , conquered and occupied for years. Jan van Massemen was only able to take possession of the castle again in 1390. When Philip the Good raised the salt tax in 1449, the Ghentians rebelled again against their sovereign, and their troops besieged Laarne again. At that time the castle was owned by Boudewijn IV. De Vos, the son of Boudewijn III., Who had received Laarne in 1426 from his father Boudewijn II., Husband of Elisabeth van Massemen ( French Isabelle de Masmines ). The Ghent soldiers were able to take the castle and arrest Boudewijn IV. An attempt at recapture by the Count of Saint-Pol , Louis I of Luxembourg , on May 22nd, 1452 was unsuccessful; Flemish troops only managed to liberate the castle on December 16th of that year on the second attempt.
Conversion to a castle
In 1505 ownership passed through the female line to the van der Moere family and then to the van Gavere family. The latter remained the owner until around 1570. During the religious unrest, the castle was looted and burned on July 24, 1570 , making it uninhabitable for the next ten years. Around the same time, Laarne came to the Schoutheete van Zuylen d'Erpe, who sold it to the van Vilsteren family in 1656 . The property was raised to a barony in 1673 for Gerard van Vilsteren (approx. 1615–1683) . Thorough renovation work took place under him, which transformed the defense structure into a more comfortable castle. This included the relocation of the main entrance from the east of the property to the western side facing the village, including the construction of a forecourt there and the construction of a stately residential building. A picture of the system in Antonius Sanderus ' Flandria Illustrata shows it in the state before the renovation, of which beam supports with the builder's coat of arms in the interior of the residential building still herald. The van Vilsteren remained the owners of Laarne until 1792. In the 18th century, they had further alterations made to the buildings, which were adapted to the taste of the time and then offered even greater living comfort. These changes included the installation of larger windows, the installation of paneling inside and the decoration of the rooms with stucco .
Laarne came to his daughter Maria-Theresia from Jacques Joseph van Vilsteren after all of her brothers had died childless. She had married Count Libert-François Christijn de Ribaucourt in 1785 and brought the castle to her husband's family. The palace only used them as a summer residence, which was damaged by French revolutionary troops in 1796 . The soldiers demolished the chapel , stole the clock from the large main tower and destroyed almost all coats of arms in and on the buildings. During the 19th century, the complex lost its function as the owner's summer residence and was therefore no longer inhabited for a long time. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that Robert de Ribaucourt planned to use Laarne again as a permanent residence and began ambitious restoration work in 1911 , which, however, was stopped by the outbreak of the First World War and Robert's sudden death. The castle remained a building site and fell into disrepair. A testimony to this building project is today's east facade of the residential building on the courtyard side, which only got its uniform appearance in 1913. Means long-term lease laarne castle then came to Charles, Baron Gilles de PÉLICHY. He intended to restore it according to the plans of the architect de Tracy, but the planned and irreversible changes were so great that the renovations were stopped.
Reconstruction and current use
Robert Christian, comte de Ribaucourt, donated the shabby and ruinous palace complex to the Royal Association for Historic Residences and Gardens in Belgium in 1953 ( French Association Royale des Demeures historiques et Jardins de Belgique , Dutch Koninklijke Vereniging der Historische Woningen & Tuinen van België ), which up to 1954 had the most necessary security measures carried out immediately according to plans by the Brussels architect Henri van Hall. A small part of the castle was massively changed. From 1962 the association began with the first restoration of the building fabric. The buildings were then refurbished with furniture, carpets and paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries, and opened to the public as a museum in 1967. In the period from 1986 to 1988 an archaeological excavation took place in the courtyard , which revealed the early history of the complex. From 1987, extensive restorations of all buildings followed, which lasted until the 1990s. The association received the prestigious Europa Nostra Prize for these measures to maintain and rebuild the castle .
The castle museum, opened in 1967, presents the visitor with an interior dating from the 15th to 18th centuries. It is open every Sunday between May and September and on a few other selected days. The exhibits do not come from the original inventory, but have been selected to match the castle. The pieces on show include two life-size portraits of Emperor Charles VI. and his wife Elisabeth Christine von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel . Also on display in the castle are several tapestries from the 15th and 16th centuries as well as a marble statue of the French king Louis XIV by the Flemish sculptor Martin van den Bogaert, who became known in France under the name of Martin Desjardins . A silverware collection of 446 individual pieces, donated to the castle in 1963 by the couple Claude and Juliette d'Allemagne, is presented in a room specially prepared for this purpose. The two lived until Claude d'Allemagne's death in 1986 in an apartment furnished in the Logis in 1968 . This has been inhabited since 1987 by the Belgian author Paul de Pessemier 's Gravendries, who has taken over the office of castellan since that year . Some rooms can be rented for various occasions, such as receptions and seminars, and the half-timbered building that stands on the site of the former farm building is now a restaurant.
description
The castle is located about 800 meters west of the center of Laarne and is connected to it via the Kasteeldreef . A 500-meter-long avenue runs parallel to this , leading in a straight line from the east to the main gate of the palace complex in its symmetrical center. The property consists of a core castle , a forecourt to the east and former farm areas in the south and south-east. The entire complex is surrounded by a rectangular system of ditches , with the main castle again being surrounded by a separate water ditch up to 18 meters wide . The current structure of the buildings essentially comes from two epochs and includes some medieval fortifications made of sandstone, which comes from the Balegem region, as well as additions and additions from the early modern period , in which brick was used for the masonry .
Core castle
The oldest building of the entire complex is the two-storey gatehouse from the 13th / 14th centuries. Century on the southwest side of the pentagonal core castle. The rectangular sandstone building has pointed arches that are around 3.5 meters high. On the south corner of the courtyard is a stair tower with a spiral staircase that leads to the first floor. This is taken up by a single large room. The stepped gables and the hatches in the slate-covered gable roof were added to the building later, which is noticeable in the other building materials. The fixed wooden bridge that leads from the west over the moat to the gatehouse dates from 1991, when the building was completely restored. In earlier times there was a drawbridge at this point , but it was dismantled in the middle of the 17th century.
Two of the five corners of the floor plan are marked by round defense towers with an inner diameter of five meters. The upper end of its three-storey outer walls is formed by a slightly cantilevered battlement, proven with battlements , at a height of around 13 meters. A small stair tower with a narrow spiral staircase is attached to the northeast corner tower. The ground floor of each tower is only illuminated through narrow slits of light, while chimneys and toilets on the upper floors provided a certain level of comfort.
At the north corner is the 20 meter high, square residential tower, a building that already existed in the Middle Ages. The foundation walls of its three floors are one meter thick and the inside is six meters long. Its basement has a brick floor and is only very moderately illuminated through narrow loopholes in the walls. The flat barrel vault of the room is supported by a central column . At its two corners on the north side, the residential tower has two smaller, polygonal corner towers that were formerly used as a prison. Its first floor houses the castle chapel, in which remains of wall paintings from the second half of the 14th century were discovered during restorations in 1911 . These came to light when subsequently applied plaster and wall coverings made of corduan leather were removed. Additional ingredients from the 17th century are the black and white marble tiles on the floor, the large window in the northern outer wall that was broken out later and the baroque marble altar from the period between 1641 and 1673, the tabernacle of which is crowned by a broken gable , on the two Sitting putti . The alliance coat of arms of the van Vilsteren / van der Mije couple on it shows that the altar was erected in the castle by the van Vilsteren family. The current condition of the chapel results from lengthy restoration work from 1987 to 1994. The top floor of the residential tower is occupied by the so-called courtroom ( French salle de justice ). Its former beam ceiling is missing, but the supports for the wooden beams are still there. That is why the battlements of the upper defense platform, which were later walled up, can be seen from the inside , which are now hidden under a steep slate hipped roof , which is crowned in the middle by a small wooden tower with a six-sided lantern . This roof also covers a small southern porch of the 14th century residential tower, which is now known as the vestibule ( French vestibule ). The space between the residential tower and the north-western round tower is occupied by a two-story building made of hewn sandstone blocks. Century was built from the inside of the medieval curtain wall. The latrine house in front of him on the courtyard side comes from a later time. The current appearance of its courtyard facade is the result of building work in 1913, during which the building was heavily modified. In his basement there is a vaulted kitchen with a large fireplace and oven as well as a brick stove.
The entire east side of the main castle is occupied by a two-storey manorial lodge. By unifying measures at the beginning of the 20th century, the wing gives the impression that it is a uniform structure, but in fact the north and south parts come from different centuries. While the northern part dates from the 15th or 16th century, the southern part of the residential building was built in the second half of the 17th century with the inclusion of the curtain wall, which is why its material also determines the eastern outer facade. The facade of the northern part is - although it is also two-storey - considerably lower and has a crenellated crown as the upper end, which is not the original, but an addition from the beginning of the 20th century. The side of the building facing the courtyard is divided into eight axes by cross-story windows . In contrast to the outer facade, the brick is the dominant building material here, which is interrupted by bright stone blocks at the window openings. The portal of the castle is located in the middle of the eastern outer wall of the residential building, which was thoroughly restored from 1991 to 1996. The baroque portal building was built in front of the eastern round tower and dates from the time when the main entrance was moved from the east to the west under Gerard von Vilsteren. Its two storeys rise on a square floor plan and are closed off by a curved dome covered with slate. The two-winged entrance door is flanked by half-columns and shows a coat of arms stone above the lintel , while the glass windows on the upper floor are framed by pilasters . They are based on a stone balustrade . A large part of the floor space in the southern logis is taken up on the ground floor by the so-called knight's hall , the dominant element of which is a heavy black marble fireplace, which was installed there in 1913. On the upper floor there is a hall of the same size, which is used as an exhibition room for the Laarner silverware collection.
The medieval curtain wall is only present in the west and south between the gate and two of the round corner towers. Together with the other buildings, it delimits the inner courtyard of the palace, in which an old stone pillory is placed. During the renovation work in the 1960s, it was brought from the town to the castle courtyard and placed there. The octagonal stone pillar stands on an octagonal base plate with three steps. The pillar is crowned with two heraldic shields held by lions. The left shield shows the coat of arms of the von Vilsteren family, while the right one shows a bear. They are reminiscent of Gerard van Vilsteren and his second wife Maria Livina de Beer, whom he married in 1675. The year 1758 can be found on the back of the coat of arms.
Forecourt
The rectangular forecourt east of the palace dates from around 1660 to 1670 and is symmetrical with paths and flower beds. From there a three-arched stone bridge from the 17th century leads over the wide moat to the castle portal. Of the four linden trees planted in the courtyard during the 17th century , only one remains. Two specimens were probably replaced in the late 1950s or early 1960s, and in 2005 another old tree had to be replaced by replanting. At the four corners of the forecourt there are pavilions , which are connected on three sides by a high brick wall. In the middle of each wall there is a basket arched gate made of alternating layers of brick and sandstone, which is flanked on the sides by pilasters and closed by a slate-covered hip roof. The connecting wall facing the street to the east has arrow slits made of stone. Your gate lies exactly in the axis of the castle portal. On the fourth side, the forecourt is bordered by a low parapet wall with stone vases that have stood there since the courtyard was restored between 1994 and 1997. The four pavilions once served as apartments for the castle administrator, the gardener, the castle chaplain and the coachman. The southern ones are almost unchanged inside, their tiled floors and chimneys date from the time they were built. The northeast pavilion was rebuilt in 1953 and adapted to today's needs for comfort. Today the owners of the castle restaurant live there. This building used to be used as a barn , as can be seen from two large, walled-in arches on its west side. An original cross vault has been preserved inside the northwestern pavilion building. The former farm buildings of the castle such as stables , barns and coach house north of the forecourt were replaced by today's half-timbered building in 1953. It was home to a restaurant.
To the southeast of the castle and the forecourt is an orchard, which can already be seen in the illustration of Laarne in the book Flandria Illustrata from 1641. It has been in use again as a kitchen garden since 1920 , but most of the trees we see today were probably not planted until after the Second World War .
literature
- Philippe Blommaert: Notice sur le château de Laerne . Hebbelynck, Gent 1838 ( digitized version ).
- Luc Francis Genicot (Ed.): Le grand livre des châteaux de Belgique . Volume 1. Vokaer, Brussels 1975, pp. 162-164.
- Paul de Pessemier's Gravendries: Gids / Guide Laarne . Koninklijke Vereniging der Historische Woningen & Tuien van Belgie, Laarne 2009.
- Marie-Caroline d'Ursel: Fifty castles bring the history of Belgium to life. 1971-1972 . Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, [Brussels] approx. 1972, pp. 40–42.
Web links
- Castle website (Dutch, French, English)
- Laarne Castle on the website of Onroerend Erfgoed (Dutch)
- Laarne Castle on the website of the Association Royale des Demeures historiques et Jardins de Belgique (French)
- Castle restaurant website (Dutch, French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schloss Laarne on the website of the network Historische huizen Vlaanderen , accessed on June 13, 2012.
- ↑ LF Genicot: Le grand livre des châteaux de Belgique , p. 164.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Schloss Laarne on the website of Onroerend Erfgoed , accessed on June 13, 2012.
- ↑ a b P. Blommaert: Notice sur le château de Laerne , p. 10.
- ↑ a b c P. de Pessemier's Gravendries: Gids / Guide Laarne , p. 10.
- ↑ P. Blommaert: Notice sur le château de Laerne , p. 11.
- ↑ P. Blommaert: Notice sur le château de Laerne , p. 12.
- ↑ a b P. de Pessemier's Gravendries: Gids / Guide Laarne , p. 11.
- ↑ Information on Laarne Castle on the website of the Association Royale des Demeures historiques et Jardins de Belgique ( Memento of the original of 23 August 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed June 13, 2012.
- ↑ a b P. de Pessemier 's Gravendries: Gids / Guide Laarne , p. 12.
- ↑ P. Blommaert: Notice sur le château de Laerne , p. 7.
- ↑ a b c d L. F. Genicot: Le grand livre des châteaux de Belgique , p. 162.
- ↑ P. Blommaert: Notice sur le château de Laerne , p. 9.
Coordinates: 51 ° 1 ′ 40.6 ″ N , 3 ° 50 ′ 18.5 ″ E